Not Always, but Enough

I let my adolescence go for a twenty pound note.
We were skint and needed to feed the meter.

Can I forgive my mother for simply not being there?
My best friend’s dad offered me a lift, his headlights

decking the puddles. I just got in. No questions asked.
My coat was wet from waiting in the rain.

He thrust the note in my hand before
it happened. And in the back seat, I clenched

my fist while he moaned quieter
than the downpour. In the bleak florescence

of the petrol station I watched
his tail lights disappear, swapped

paper for coins. Our house lit up like Christmas.
X Ray Spex spun on the turntable.

I loved Poly Styrene, her voice – raw energy in day-glo.
It meant more to me than money.

Over the years I have learned
to forget that day. Not always, but enough.

© Copyright Naomi Woddis 2008

Inspired and taken from answers to the the following questions:

Is new always better?
What does it mean to love?
Is forgiveness always possible or necessary?

Please email me on poetrymosaic@btinternet.com if you fancy taking part. Please make replies no more than 100 words.

Elaine Crinnion
If she can forgive her aunts, her grandmother, her mother, for slicing her genitalia away to a wound at the age of five; if she can forgive herself the strange shame when realizing how abhorrent this custom is, to so many; if the raped can forgive their violators; if the bereft can forgive those who stopped their loved-ones’ precious, beating hearts: Surely I can forgive my mother’s relinquishment; surely those two baby daughters of my own, can forgive me, for so unwillingly, unstoppably, birthing them too soon to live. And surely I can forgive myself. Any forgiveness is possible. Surely.

Karen McCarthy
Years ago I sold a copy of a rare album – X-Ray Spex Germfree Adolescents – to the Record and Tape Exchange. I was skint and needed to feed the meter but it wasn’t worth it. I loved that album and the title track. I loved the cover. I loved Poly Styrene – one of the only black punk singers around. I loved the day glo test tubes. I loved the tunes. I loved their raw energy. Her voice. I had loads of records I didn’t like and I ummed an ah’d about it. I could have bought the CD to replace it – or a reprint vinyl – but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. I have little fantasies about finding a scratched original (or a slightly less scratched original) . The worst thing is I knew even as I sold it that it meant more to me than money – or even owning a rare thing – ever could. But I did it anyway. It was my adolescence. It meant something and I let it go for 20 quid.

Miriam Nash
My best friend’s dad would drive me home from school. During the half-hour ride he’d start to talk about my father – what a bad man he was. How could I love a man who left my mother for a younger lover? That’s not a real father, he’d say. I’d clench my fists in the back seat, willing tears to stay behind my eyes. Over the years, between them, my dad and hers, they taught me about forgiveness.